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Preliminary election results show that Oklahoma voters may have approved State Question 802 — an Affordable Care Act (ACA) Medicaid expansion measure.
The measure would amend the state constitution to require state leaders to accept federal ACA Medicaid expansion funding.
The measure appeared on the ballot Tuesday. At press time, the Oklahoma State Election Board was reporting 340,279 votes in favor of the amendment measure, or 50.48% of all votes tallied, and 333,761 against.
Resources
- Information about Oklahoma State Question 802 is available here.
- Information about the election results is available here.
- A health insurance group vice president's thoughts about Medicaid expansion politics are available here.
The ACA Medicaid expansion program provides enough federal funding to cover 90% of the cost of making Medicaid available to adults under 65 who earn up to 138% of the federal poverty level, or $17,236 for an individual.
Caveats
In the preliminary results tally, State Question 802 was leading by just 6,518 votes.
That tally did not include results for "provisional ballots," or ballots cast by people who faced questions about their eligibility to vote, or about their eligibility to vote where they voted.
The election board said it expected to certify that final results sometime between 5 p.m. Friday and by the end of the day on July 7.
Even if the ballot measure succeeds, it's not clear what that would mean for Oklahoma's Medicaid program.
